An aged priest moves slowly along, pensive, with staff in hand, and breviary under his arm. His air is serene, his countenance expressive,—he looks inspired! Where is he going? Do you see that church in the distance? The youthful village parson, distrustful as yet of his own powers, has called to his assistance the old missionary. But first of all he has some arrangements to make. The preacher will find, indeed, food and shelter at the parsonage—but he must live from one year’s end to another. Mons. le Curé, then, has promoted a subscription among the rich people of the village, moderate in amount, but sufficient; for the aged pastor is not exacting, and answered the person who wrote to him—“Du pain pour moi, voilà mon nécessaire; une obole pour le pauvre, voilà mon superflu.”
Thus are the economic preliminaries complied with; for this meddling Political Economy creeps into everything, and is to be found everywhere—Nil humani a me alienum puto.
Let us enlarge a little on this example, which is very apposite to what we are now discussing.
Here you have an exchange of services. On the one hand you have an old man who devotes his time, his strength, his talents, his health, to enlighten the minds of a few villagers, and raise them to a higher moral level. On the other hand, bread for a few days, and a hat and cassock, are assured to the man of eloquence.
But there is something more here. There is a rivalry of sacrifices. The old priest refuses everything that is not absolutely indispensable. Of that poor pittance the curé takes one half on his [p149] own shoulders; the village Crœsuses exempt their brethren from the other half, who nevertheless profit by the sermons.
Do these sacrifices invalidate our definition of value? Not at all. Each is free to render his services only on such terms as are agreeable to himself. If these conditions are made easy, or if none are stipulated for, what is the consequence? The service, preserving its utility, loses its value. The old priest is persuaded that his services will find their reward in another world, and he cares not for their being recompensed here below. He feels, no doubt, that he is rendering a service to his auditors in addressing them, but he also feels that they do him a service in listening to him. Hence it follows that the transaction is based upon advantage to one of the contracting parties, with the full consent of the other. That is all. In general, exchanges are determined and estimated by reference to self-interest; but, thank God, that is not always the case: they are sometimes based on the principle of sympathy, and in that case we either transfer to another a satisfaction which we might have reserved for ourselves, or we make an effort for him which we might have devoted to our own profit and advantage. Generosity, devotion, self-sacrifice, are impulses of our nature, which, like many other circumstances, influence the actual value of a particular service, but they make no change on the general law of values.
In contrast to this consoling example, I might adduce another of a very opposite character. In order that a service should possess value, in the economical sense of the word, it is not at all indispensable that it should be a real, conscientious, and useful service; it is sufficient that it is accepted, and paid for by another service. The world is full of people who palm upon the public services of a quality more than doubtful, and make the public pay for them. All depends on the judgment which we form in each case; and this is the reason why morals will be always the best auxiliary of Political Economy.
Impostors succeed in propagating a false belief. They represent themselves as the ambassadors of Heaven. They open at pleasure the gates of heaven or of hell. When this belief has once taken firm root, “Here,” say they, “are some little images to which we have communicated the virtue of securing eternal happiness to those who carry them about their persons. In bestowing upon you one of these images, we render you an immense service. You must render us, then, certain services in return.” Here you have a Value created. It is founded on a false appreciation, you say, and that is true. We might say as much of many material things [p150] which possess a certain value, for they would find purchasers if set up to auction. Economic science would become impossible if we admitted as values only values correctly and judiciously appreciated. At every step we must begin a new course of the moral and physical sciences. In a state of isolation, depraved desires and a warped intelligence may cause a man to pursue with great effort and exertion a chimerical satisfaction—a delusion. In like manner, in the social state, it sometimes happens, as the philosopher says, that we buy regret too dear. But if truth is naturally more in keeping with the human mind than error, all these frauds are destined to disappear—all these delusive services to be spurned and lose their value. Civilisation will, in the long-run, put everybody and everything in the right place.
But we must conclude this analysis, which has already extended to too great a length. Among the various wants of our nature, respiration, hunger, thirst—and the wants and desires which take their rise in our vanity, in our heads, hearts, and opinions, in our hopes for the future, whether well or ill grounded—everywhere we have sought for Value—and we have found it wherever an exchange of service takes place. We have found it everywhere of the same nature, based upon a principle clear, simple, absolute, although influenced by a multitude of varying circumstances. We might have passed in review all our other wants; we might have cited the carpenter, the mason, the manufacturer, the tailor, the physician, the officer of justice, the lawyer, the merchant, the painter, the judge, the president of the republic, and we should have found exactly the same thing. Frequently a material substance; sometimes forces furnished gratuitously by nature; always human services interchanged, measuring each other, estimating, appreciating, valuing one another, and exhibiting simply the result of that Valuation—or Value.
There is, however, one of our wants, very special in its nature, the cement of society, at once the cause and the effect of all our transactions, and the everlasting problem of Political Economy, of which it is necessary to say something in this place—I allude to the want of Exchanging.